A High Court in Accra has ordered a former board member and Acting Secretary of the Ghana Invest Infrastructure Investment Fund (GIIF), Kofi Boakye, to produce signed minutes of the Fund’s board meeting dated March 13, 2019.
This followed a request by counsel for former Chief Executive Officer of the Fund, Solomon Asamoah, urging the court to order the witness to produce the minutes.
The request was based on the fact that, although a subsequent board minute references the March 13, 2019, minute, that document is not among the documents disclosed by the prosecution.
Mrs. Victoria Barth, in her earlier cross-examination of the witness, had established that he submitted minutes for every board meeting of GIIF held during his tenure as the board secretary.
The witness had also indicated that if given the opportunity, he may be able to produce the said minutes to the court.
However, the Deputy Attorney General, Dr. Justice Srem-Sai, vehemently opposed the request for the production of the minute, describing it as a fishing expedition.
“My Lord, gradually, the trial is being converted into a fishing expedition where all manner of materials is being requested so that perhaps defence counsel will chance upon something that may be of assistance. But my Lord, that is not the purpose of disclosures in criminal trials,” he argued.
He further contended that it is not the witness’s job to assist counsel with these minutes, which are also in the accused’s possession and can be obtained from legitimate sources.
“In short, the minutes, whether the approved one or the draft one, if they existed, are in possession of the accused persons themselves, and they will have all the opportunity to produce them if it so becomes necessary for their defence,” Dr. Srem-Sai added.
The objection was opposed by Mrs. Barth who pointed out that in so far as excepts of the said minutes appeared in a different minute, it is important for the court to get the complete document, noting that “after all, it is the prosecution’s case that none of the minutes of the board of GIIF supports the fact that the board approved of the Sky Train project.”
She also noted that the case investigators, in their wisdom, narrowed their focus to the board of GIIF minutes between September 2018 and December 2020, with the March 13, 2019, minutes falling within that window, and wondered why it was difficult to produce them.
“It is untenable for the prosecution to suggest that we should wait for the witness to be discharged when this witness is the author of this document, and then come and open his defence and somehow produce the minutes of 13 March 2019. The prosecutor’s duty is to seek the justice of the case and not pursue a conviction at all costs,” she added.
Justice Audrey Kocuvie-Tay, in her ruling, granted the request and ordered the witness to produce the approved minutes if he could find them.
The cross-examination then predominantly focused on whether the Sky Train project was approved by the GIIF Board.
While the witness maintained that the project was not recommended to the board by its Finance and Investment Committee (IC), the defence lawyer confronted him with excerpts of board minutes which described the project as “following approval by the board.”
He was also questioned about an email trail sent to Mr. Asamoah by board members, which described the Sky Train project as board-approved and stated that none of the recipients had raised any objection to that description.
“When exhibit 24, the email in which A1 (Solomon Asamoah) stated that the Sky Train project had been approved at the IC meeting of 28 September 2018, was circulated to you and other board members, you did not reply to say that no such thing had happened. Did you?” the lawyer asked.
“Yes, I did not,” the witness answered, while adding that “there was no point in arguing out a fact on an email trail. The decision of the board is found in the board minutes…”
The case has been adjourned to February 19 for further cross-examination.
Background
In 2019, the Ghana Infrastructure Investment Fund (GIIF) invested US$2 million for a 10% stake in Africa Investor Skytrain Consortium Holdings (“Ai Skytrain”), the company developing Accra’s Skytrain light railway project.
The Africa Investor Group (the “Sponsors”) was selected and granted the rights to develop the project by the Government of Ghana (“GoG”) through the Ministry of Railways Development (“MORD”).
At the time, the Chairman of GIIF was Professor Christopher Ameyaw-Akumfi, and the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) was Mr Solomon Asamoah. The Chairman had previously been a member of the GoG. Mr. Asamoah was an international development banker who had been headhunted for the position by a UK recruitment agency.
Following a change of government in Ghana in December 2024, the GoG, through the office of the Attorney General of Ghana, now alleges that this action was taken without Board approval, resulting in a willful financial loss to the state, as there is as yet “no railway built”.
It should be noted that there are no allegations of personal gain or diversion of funds in the charges, and the state has not charged anyone from MORD or the GoG-selected sponsors; only the GIIF Chairman and CEO have been charged.
The state witnesses who initially faced charges of causing financial loss to the state themselves dropped these charges after stating they did not approve the project, casting significant doubt on the reliability of their statements.
The prosecution’s case is built almost entirely on these statements to show that a legitimate transaction was “unauthorized”, without which there would be no case to answer.
“The prosecution’s case appears to be politically motivated, intended to fulfill a campaign promise to prosecute members of the previous government. It is unsupported by the facts, relying on demonstrably false witness statements,” a lawyer familiar with the case stated on condition of anonymity.
